The Architect of the Narrative
There are moments in an investigation where everything snaps into place—not because the facts change, but because someone finally steps out from behind the curtain.
That’s what happened when I discovered Dr. Christopher M. Burkle’s name on a 2014 article published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. For years, I had suspected that what happened to Lindsey and Rico wasn’t just a tragic sequence of missteps—it was scripted. The article confirmed it. And more importantly, it named the architect.
Burkle wasn’t just a physician. He was a lawyer. A medical ethicist. A legal defender of doctors. And the former Chair of the very state board where we once filed a complaint. His involvement wasn’t peripheral. It was embedded at every level—legal, clinical, academic, and regulatory.
This excerpt is taken from a pivotal chapter in my book. It pulls together years of buried details into a single, inescapable conclusion: this wasn’t a case study—it was a blueprint for institutional control.
Excerpt from Chapter: The Architect of the Narrative
(from A Step Beyond Evil)
For years, I suspected Lindsey and Rico were never just patients. They were a project—folded into an institutional rhythm too coordinated to ignore. The residents, the record layering, the courtroom choreography—it wasn’t coincidence. It was design.
Then I found the blueprint.
In 2014, a clinical article was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology titled “When Courts Intervene: Public Health, Legal, and Ethical Issues Surrounding HIV, Pregnant Women, and Newborn Infants.” One of the authors was Dr. Christopher M. Burkle—a Mayo Clinic physician who also holds a law degree, built a legal career defending healthcare practitioners, and served as Chair of the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice’s Complaint Review Committee.
The same committee where we had filed a formal complaint in 1993.
Burkle had access to Lindsey’s records. He knew there was no document showing she refused treatment during pregnancy—because such a document doesn’t exist. But in the article, that lie became the foundation: “a case of an HIV-positive pregnant woman who declined treatment.” Not a footnote. The framing device.
The article wasn’t an exploration of ethics. It was a legal shield. Credentialed. Peer-reviewed. Built to hold up under scrutiny, not to seek the truth—but to end the conversation.
This wasn’t about care.
It was about control.
And Burkle didn’t just observe the system—he authored it.
This chapter changes the scope of the book.
It shows that what happened to Lindsey and Rico was not only sanctioned—but published, taught, and replicated.
And it reveals just how thin the wall is between law, medicine, and the narratives used to justify harm.
More soon.
— Steve